Science and free will

[UndercoverElephant]

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of compatibilism, which I described earlier.

I think your confusion begins with the assumption that compatibilists are talking about a completely different sort of thing.

Of course they are talking about a completely different sort of thing. They are making a claim which has absolutely nothing to do with metaphysics.

They are not. Compatibilists are talking about your ability to do things at all--that's the same thing incompatibilists are talking about.

No it isn't. Incompatibilists are talking about metaphysics.

 

[yy2bggggs]

Eh?

You asked me "how does the act belong to me?" My answer is that it depends on what you mean by "me." I can't tell you what you mean by "me" or "I".

I just need a cogent picture. It needs to be something you can rightfully call will. What you do to get there isn't all that important to me.

 

[yy2bggggs]

No it isn't. Incompatibilists are talking about metaphysics.

I hereby declare myself uninterested in continuing this discussion.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Yes. Because my "metaphysics" works and yours does not. It is useless.

Nope, my metaphysics work perfectly well thankyou very much. In fact, they work better than yours do, because I don't have to talk nonsense in defense of materialism.

I hope you aren't trying to wheel out the old "materialism is true because science works" nonsense, either. Science works, but this tells you nothing at all about metaphysics.

I actually believes it harms you since I think it has led to you wasting your life away in persuit of nonsense but that's your own decision to make.

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Really? You mean you haven't wasted your time and effort in believing in your mystical experiences instead of actually spending your time doing something useful?

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You mean you haven't been advocating a belief system that leads to anti-science and New Age fantasy beliefs?

Nope. Nothing I have said is "anti-science" and you do not have faultless knowledge which could lead you to KNOW that all new age beliefs are fantasies. You apparently cannot tell the difference between your own beliefs and scientific-supported claims.

No. It is scientific fact mystical beliefs are often times hallucinations or delusions.

Key word: OFTEN.

NOT "always."

No evidence to the contrary except for "because I say so."

Which is exactly the amount of evidence you have to back up the claim "all mystical experiences are harmful delusions."

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[UndercoverElephant]

The irony here is quite something.

Several people posting in this thread seem to believe they have a right to claim that all forms of religious belief are harmful. In other words, they, like PixyMisa, think they are "saving me" from religion. You think you are better than religious believers? You aren't. The Jesus freaks think they are "saving me" from atheism and the atheists here think they are "saving me" from mysticism.

I don't want to be "saved" by anybody, thankyou very much. Mind your own

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business. Neither the atheistic materialists nor the Jesus freaks are in any position to tell me that my beliefs are harmful and that I would be better off believing what they believe. Neither actually know why I believe what I believe. They just have opinions, which are based on their own belief systems, and which they have mistaken for facts.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I just need a cogent picture. It needs to be something you can rightfully call will. What you do to get there isn't all that important to me.

I still don't know what you are asking me for. I have described the difference, phenomenologically (i.e. from your point of view), between the contents of your mind and the observer of that content. Both are refered to as "I", but in a discussion about agency and free will we have to distinguish between them.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I hereby declare myself uninterested in continuing this discussion.

Why? You were plenty interested yesterday. You begged me to answer your questions.

I have to conclude that you found the answers acceptable.

Compatibilist free will and incompatibilist free will are completely different things. CFW defines free will to mean "freedom from external oppression". LFW defines free will to mean "freedom from being fully determined by the laws of physics."

 

[paximperium]

Nope, my metaphysics work perfectly well thankyou very much. In fact, they work better than yours do, because I don't have to talk nonsense in defense of materialism.

Coming from someone who has only been able to produce semantic acrobatics to defend his "metaphysics", the irony is most amusing.

I hope you aren't trying to wheel out the old "materialism is true because science works" nonsense, either. Science works, but this tells you nothing at all about metaphysics.

Science works. Your fantasy does not. End of story.

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You asked for an example. Don't blame me for presenting a great one.

I know as much as you do about science and considerably more than you do about philosophy and religion.

The "I'm so smart, no one can understand me" excuse again?

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True. I don't care about you or your life except for the nonsense you spew. Harm and all that jazz.

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Pssst...public forum and all that.

Nope. Nothing I have said is "anti-science" and you do not have faultless knowledge which could lead you to KNOW that all new age beliefs are fantasies.

Never said ALL since there is an occasional diamond in pile of dung. I know that MANY are. Yours for example.

You apparently cannot tell the difference between your own beliefs and scientific-supported claims.

What are my beliefs? My beliefs that fantasy-based beliefs are well known to be delusions, hallucinations and downright useless if not harmful?

Key word: OFTEN.
NOT "always."

Yes. So? Or is your logical fallacy suppose to prove a point or just show how blinded you are?

Which is exactly the amount of evidence you have to back up the claim "all mystical experiences are harmful delusions."

Did I make that claim? Hmmmm....

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Yes. Was that suppose to say something?

Oh well, I'm bored. I'm going to go read up some sciencey stuff about neuroscience and AI. Science will keep marching along as the dregs and detritus of philosophy keep claiming some magical metaphysical insight based on nothing by semantic posturing and self delusion as everyone ignores them.

 

[paximperium]

The irony here is quite something.

Several people posting in this thread seem to believe they have a right to claim that all forms of religious belief are harmful. In other words, they, like PixyMisa, think they are "saving me" from religion. You think you are better than religious believers? You aren't. The Jesus freaks think they are "saving me" from atheism and the atheists here think they are "saving me" from mysticism.

I don't want to be "saved" by anybody, thankyou very much. Mind your own

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business. Neither the atheistic materialists nor the Jesus freaks are in any position to tell me that my beliefs are harmful and that I would be better off believing what they believe. Neither actually know why I believe what I believe. They just have opinions, which are based on their own belief systems, and which they have mistaken for facts.

Who are you arguing with?

Just because you want to really really really "will" things into other people's mouths, it does not automatically make it into reality.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

There is no more discussion to be had. I have tried to have a discussion about free will, but as soon as it looked like the people who want to defend their a-priori belief that it doesn't exist were going to lose the argument, they stopped talking about free will and started spouting their normal crap, which is based entirely on their abject inability to tell the difference between scientifically-justified knowledge and their own faith-based belief systems.

Most of the people who post on this board are no better than the religious believers they look down upon from such immense height. In fact they are worse, because they actually don't even realise their faith-based beliefs are faith-based.

 

[paximperium]

Yawn.

 

[Belz...]

Not possible. There is no objective evidence which can be used to determine whether or not my experience was real, because there is no scientific test which would have a different outcome dependent on whether or not it was real.

Therefore it is unfalsifiable. If there cannot be a different outcome to its existence of non-existence, the reasonable thing to do is to assume that it isn't real.

 

[Belz...]

The agent is uncaused. It is an uncaused cause.

You said "the agent of free will". But you also said that free will was uncaused. Therefore it cannot have an agent, because such an agent would be a cause.

 

[Belz...]

Of course it is possible to see something which looks like water but actually turned out be a mirage. It does not follow that I can be mistaken about whether or not I have a headache,

Yes it does, because all it shows is that you can be mistaken about your perceptions.

 

[Belz...]

Nope, my metaphysics work perfectly well thankyou very much. In fact, they work better than yours do, because I don't have to talk nonsense in defense of materialism.

Just because you're more convinced doesn't make you right.

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Touchy.

You are a metaphysical fascist.

Godwined.

 

[Belz...]

There is no more discussion to be had. I have tried to have a discussion about free will, but as soon as it looked like the people who want to defend their a-priori belief that it doesn't exist were going to lose the argument,

Huh ? Losing an argument against someone who doesn't understand his own arguments is not a possibility.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

Ron,

I've answered your question. No scientist has ever measured or observed anybody's headache.

Again, that's not the question I asked you and again you can keep repeating that headaches can't be measured and studied by science but it won't make it anymore true, UE. Do not insult our intelligence

Again, I will ask you the question I know you refuse to answer because you know I cornered you right at the point where your argument falls flat:

Quote:
So you're always one hundred per cent positive that everything that you experience could never, ever, be a false perception?

Yes or No?

Meaning:

If you are 100% sure you're seeing water (meaning, if you were asked at the moment if you "think" you're seeing water, you would answer "No. I don't think I'm seeing water. I know I'm seeing it. It's real, drinkable water), only to later find out as you walk further that you were wrong, that it wasn't actually water, that it was nothing but a mirage, even though at the previous moment you "knew" what you were seeing water. Do you in other words accept that perception is erroneous and leads to false beliefs, no matter how convincing they are? That believing that things are real because "you are one hundred per cent that what you're perceiving is real" is a dishonest approach based on wishful thinking?

Where were we? I've lost the thread of the debate...

Geoff

Don't worry. I'll keep reminding you of the question you continue to ignore as many times as necessary throughout this thread

 

[Beth]

UE - I enjoy your posts. May I respectfully suggest you calm down before posting again. I'd like to continue reading your posts. This discussion is interesting to me.

What am I trying to explain?

Two things:

(1) how it is possible that the will can both be free and non-random.
(2) my own personal experiences.

Are you familiar with the concept of 'degrees of freedom'? Does your concept of free will allow for some constraints - i.e. free only within certain boundaries?

That answer doesn't mean anything. It is of critical importance what you mean by "I". Do you mean your mind/body or the agent of free will (your subjective "I")?

You seem to be drawing a distinction between the subjective "I" and the physical "I". Is this correct? Do you feel these are different entities?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I'm afraid we aren't going to be able to rely on other people's definitions of "random", of which there are many. You can't get rid of free will by defining it out of existence any more than you can get rid of the mind-body problem by defining it out of existence.

I certainly can define it out of existence, especially considering that no one can define it at all.

It wasn't "determined/decided/calculated/invented/arrived at/come up with" at all. It just was.

An intentional decision can't just be.

Maybe this is an essential missing piece of information: the agent is aware of everything that anything, anywhere is aware of.

The agent of my free will os omniscient? Holy crap. Nonetheless, if that awareness is what produces the agent's decisions, then they are determined.

Remember the analogy of the picture on the reel of film (brain processes), the picture on the movie screen (mind) and the missing part of the explanation in the mind-body problem (the lamp in the projector)? That lamp is also the agent of free will. There is only one of these lamps, not many. So the agent is aware of everything that anything, anywhere is aware of. It doesn't have its own brain (that would be another sort of deterministic, cognitive process). But it does have access to slightly less than seven billion human brains and everything that all of them are aware of, including all of their knowledge and all of their emotional states. So the question is: "how do we get from effective omniscience (knowledge of everything which is known at the present moment) and effective omnipotence with respect to control over apparently random physical events, to some actual coherent effect via free will?"

Indeed.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Again, that's not the question I asked you and again you can keep repeating that headaches can't be measured and studied by science but it won't make it anymore true, UE. Do not insult our intelligence

Then stop insulting mine. No scientific instrument can determine what the word "headache" means. Science studies BRAINS, Ron. It studies neurons and chemicals and electrical signals. It doesn't study headaches. "Headache" is a word used by humans to describe some aspect of their subjective experience. Scientists then go looking for NEURAL CORRELATES or causes of the headache. They don't go looking for the headache.

This is so simple I really do not understand why so many people apparently cannot understand what I am saying. Science studies objective, physical things, not subjective, non-physical things like "headaches" or "what red looks like to me."

(EDIT: And please can nobody respond to that with "how do you know headaches aren't physical", because to do so is to play with words and totally miss the point of what is being said. Calling subjective things like headaches "physical" doesn't suddenly mean science can go looking for headaches.)

Again, I will ask you the question I know you refuse to answer because you know I cornered you right at the point where your argument falls flat:

Yes or No?

Don't worry. I'll keep reminding you of the question you continue to ignore as many times as necessary throughout this thread

I've already answered it, and my argument doesn't "fall down" at this point regardless of which answer I give to the question. I have no idea why you think it does.

Human perception is often erroneous, but there are limits to the size of the error we can make. So there are certain things we can be mistaken about, and certain things we can't.

Why do you think this causes my argument to collapse??? Please explain the chain of logic by which it collapses? Even if I'd said "yes, we could be mistaken about anything at all", it still wouldn't collapse, because I'm not asking anybody else to take my personal experiences into account.